The billions of dollars the United States is pumping into its war in Iraq might be better spent battling human rights problems, a former president of Ireland and former United Nations official said.

Mary Robinson, who was Ireland’s president from 1990 to 1997 before spending five years as high commissioner of human rights for the United Nations, spoke Thursday at Kansas University.

She said the United Nations General Assembly’s goals for human rights set in 2000 — which included bringing all children out of poverty and providing them with a primary education, both by 2015 — have been put on the back burner in favor of the war on terrorism. The goals carried an estimated price tag of $50 billion per year.

“I thought it was a large figure until we started hearing figures in the current military campaign,” Robinson said. “The money is there. It just depends on how you spend it.”

Robinson spoke to about 300 people Thursday evening in Budig Hall as part of the Stephenson Lectures in Law & Government series. She also met with faculty and students at the KU School of Law and had dinner with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

During a news conference Thursday afternoon, Robinson said although she opposed war in Iraq, she admitted human rights violations by Saddam Hussein’s regime needed to end.

“There was a serious human rights situation,” she said. “It’s clear the war has resulted in a positive way, that the harsh violations by a dictator will come to an end. Now we need to focus on forming a sense of identity for the Iraqi people. There is a world of responsibility in this.”

Robinson said she didn’t think the United Nations was “critically damaged” as a result of a split on the war in Iraq, but she did say it was important for nations to begin working together on the post-Saddam Iraq.

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, speaks to first-year Kansas University law students about the importance of the international criminal court. Robinson, who spoke on Thursday at Green Hall on the KU campus, was the first female president in Ireland. She now is a human rights lawyer.

“I’m very concerned because we need a world that’s very together,” she said. “I’m deeply troubled. I think it’s been unnecessarily divisive.”

Robinson, now director of the New York-based Ethical Globalization Initiative, said she hoped the war on terrorism didn’t take focus away from other human rights issues, such as the 3 million people killed in recent years in the Republic of Congo or the AIDS crisis in Africa.

She also urged the United States to ratify a United Nations resolution that would create an international court system.

As the first female president of Ireland, Robinson said she hoped to serve as an inspiration for young American women. She also noted that her successor, Mary McAleese, is a woman.

“There’s a joke in Ireland that small boys weep on their mothers’ knees and say, ‘Why can’t I be president?'” Robinson said.

¢ 6News video: Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, speaks to KU students